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Alan Smith
Alan Smith is an astoundingly resilient human from Kasland. Description Alan is an adult human with short, brown hair and gray eyes. His body has a large number of scars on it, most of which are covered by a shirt, wool leggings and a well worn leather jacket. There are generally around ten knives hidden around his clothes, easily accessed. History Alan's story begins with his birth in the village of Markila, near the Castle Barius in Kasland. His father was a blacksmith, which is where his name comes from. When Alan was only a few years old his mother caught a fever and died, leaving his father to raise him alone. Ill-suited to the task and busy with his job, Alan's father was too stern with the boy, which eventually drove him away. At the age of twelve, after hearing many stories, Alan ran away from home to serve as a soldier for Lord Vetto Barius. After being turned away by a castle guard, the boy climbed a tree and scaled the wall to ask the lord personally to join his household. Impressed by Alan's ingenuity and conviction, Barius brought him in and gave him over to his spymaster Humphrey, to be trained. After three years of Humphrey's training, however, Kasland was conquered by the kingdom of Harmonia. When Barius was evicted from his own castle, Alan chose to follow him. Although he was offered the chance to visit his father, he stubbornly declined. From that point Alan spent several more years in Barius' service as a spy and infiltrator, helping his new mercenary force the Dogs of War take cities and castles. Eventually he was convinced to return home and visit his father, but just too late. When Alan returned, Markila was in flames, attacked by the brutal bandit Vargr. Alan arrived just in time to see his father die in the ruins of his smithy. He never got any kind of revenge. Alan spent a few more years in Barius' service, seeing many new faces join the Dogs of War, including a witch named Lady Peral and a Huxian perrier named Myst. Eventually the Dogs were hired to defeat the lord of Gemalikis by a lord who could not pay them for their services, so Barius took the castle as his own, making of it a base of operations for the Dogs of War. Soon after, Alan was sent to help re-take Toren for its rightful lord, a mission that led to him both losing his right hand and meeting Vyla Mortae, a dangerous venomancer he fell in love with. She was convinced to follow him back to Gemalikis and join the Dogs as well. Eventually Alan gained a new hand, specifically a hand of glory, grafted onto him by Mordred, a mordreg serving with the Dogs of War. Following a botched assassination, Sir Dameron Gortr and his companion Jao the fox child joined the Dogs. The mountain dog Yosele also joined the mercenary band. When the Huxian Abbir ascended to his role as al-Shaitan, Myst returned to help his people rebel against their Zhalamic overlords. The Dogs had need of him however, so Alan went to retrieve his friend. While in the desert he first met, and had a tryst with, Sentatib the deathcaller. Following Myst's return the Dogs of War were hired to fight in the war over Ikaria, and Alan was instrumental in Barius' wider plan to swindle Harmonia out of a fortune in gold. Vyla however ended up killed by Yl-Dhan after enacting a plan to induce a berserker state in Jao, his sister. Mordred however revived her as a succubus creature. Things quickly turned sour from this point, with Vyla draining Alan's lifeforce and Myst being killed horribly in a battle with a pyromancer. Alan however deluded himself into believing that the Huxian was only severely wounded. After finally realizing the witch was manipulating, Barius, with Alan's help, killed Peral using her own blood magic against her. However his spell attracted several deities, as well as something more powerful, which brought about the deaths of Wyngakah, Hecate, and maybe Nirvana. The result left Alan thrice-cursed, but with his hand regrown. Events continued to become bad, with Vyla and Mordred leaving the Dogs of War not long before Prince Sonata d'Harmonia, imbittered at his embarrassing defeat in Ikaria, attacked Gemalikis, killing many of the mercenaries and forcing the castle to be abandoned. During the chaos, Greoff Stern deserted and Emett Walfur robbed Barius at gunpoint. Following this monumental loss the Dogs went to the Teri Oasis in the desert, to finally deliver the body of Myst after Alan came to admit to himself that the Anubite was dead. He also reunited briefly with Sentatib. The next course the Dogs of War took was to finally seek revenge on Harmonia. They travelled to the Palace of Echoes, arriving just after prince Sonata, driven insane by a Nightmare, crashed an airship into the palace barracks, killing dozens of knights and guards. With the aid of unlikely ally Samba d'Harmonia they made their way through the city, with Barius killing Prince Sonata before the Dogs helped Samba kill his grandfather. Following the death of King Elegy and the fall of Harmonia, the Dogs of War gathered some other loyal members to hunt down the traitors from Gemalikis. They trailed Emett Walfur and his Devil Dogs to Burmecia in Feyvern and killed several in a brutal fashion before Alan was unexpectedly re-united with Vyla. They were not able to kill Emett, however, because Nereids attacked the city, summoning a tidal wave and sacrificing Naiads to send Naga against Burmecia. Alan and the Dogs narrowly survived, but the traitors escaped. Shortly after leaving Burmecia Alan and Vyla were kidnapped and dragged to Anserak by Wyngakah, disguised as Nirvana. They were both tortured for some time there before Barius and several others arrived to rescue them. Vyla however was corrupted and died in battle with Lord Barius. After being returned to Midgard, Alan fell into a fairly deep depression, which only showed signs of breaking when he was approached by Zuzeem, a Huxian whore in New Omnikron. She stayed on with the current Dogs, along with several freed slaves, Creme the Mebeqkki and Peaches from Taneria. This was also the first time the Dogs of War met Eros Sanguis and Metacl, whose grandmother made Barius a magic blanket to help him further master his blood magic. Alan also began sneaking around and using the blanket to learn blood magic. The Dogs traveled to Antiem so that Barius could try and find a way to revive his slain followers. While there, Alan fouled up a terrorist attack on the city, causing a rust gas explosion. Alan narrowly avoided a violent death and later went with Lord Barius to aid Lilac, the insane daughter of Nirvana. They found she was kidnapped by shadowy villains in Graceland and helped kill the demonic lord there before Barius became the new host of the Bloodthirsty beast that houses the Nightmares. The Dogs of War, with Lilac, Jao, and Dameron Gortr moved for a time to Mozheim while Barius tried to master his new powers. It was here that Alan met Fafil Ben, a half-elven tailor. After losing his new powers, Barius became concerned about his death, and to ensure that his people would be protected, sent Alan to seek training as a counter-assassin from Eros Sanguis. They met in Leaondar, where Eros decided to manipulate Alan into comitting some robberies while teaching him as little as possible. During the "training" Alan met a Heretic merchant who created several extra vials of a powerful Soulerian poison given to him by Bootless Brynn and his friend Gustaf. This included sending Alan to break into and steal from the Labyrinth, thought to be almost unpenentrable. Initially he tried hiring ex-general Sybarion, but when that did not work Alan teamed up with two mage students and a shade of Jin, the legendary wind demon, who made the endeavor almost trivial. After an encounter with Morganna Alan took a boat after Eros and Metacl in Jermenia. On the way he was kidnapped and (sort-of) raped by a quartet of female Naiad pirates, who robbed him and left him on a beach, but did not kill him. After impressing Eros with his survival and success, Alan went about trying to regain his powerful poison from the Nereid girls, but they had sold all but one of the vials, putting him back to where he was. Alan was unable to learn this due to the language barrier, and ended up inadvertently causing an attack by sharkmen, in which two of the Nereids died. He rescued the other two, known as Myra and Seryl, and took them back to Mozheim with him, much to Lord Barius' consternation. Still more to come... Skills and abilities Alan is a trained infiltrator and acrobat. He is adept at fighting with any type of knives, as well as his bare hands and feet. However, unlike his teacher Humphrey, he has no skill with the bow. Alan also has quick hands, making him a passable pickpocket. Having been trained by half a dozen different teachers, Alan has a fairly unorthodox fighting style. He tends to attempt feints and misdirection in order to fool his opponents into making openings for him to strike them. This includes talking in battle, saying inappropriate or unexpected things in an attempt to throw his enemy off. When using weapons in battle, even swords with which he is only moderately proficient, Alan tends to add in kicks and punches, attacking with every part of his body. Recently, Alan also received the barest of training from Eros Sanguis. He developed the ability to apply his chakra to his hands and feet, making devastating strikes and impressive leaps. He also became capable of astral projecting, though not nearly on the level of Eros. Relationships Vetto Barius Lord Barius was Alan's liege lord and commander of their mercenary company, and Alan, like many others, saw him as a sort of father-figure. Vyla Mortae When Alan met Vyla, it was lust at first sight. He pursued her for weeks, constantly being shot down until she eventually took interest in him. Eros Sanguis and Metacl Alan approached the creature known as Eros Sanguis to learn how to become a counter-assassin. While teaching him as little as possible, Eros tormented Alan mercilessly, and left him with multiple threats on his life. While being tormented by Eros, Alan got to know his witch, Metacl. The two became unlikely friends, with Metacl rarely being one of the few women Alan does not shamelessly attempt to sleep with (likely out of his fear of Eros). Dogs of War Humphrey taught Alan how to fight and how to be a proper spy, and became another father-figure to him. Category:Incomplete Category:Humans